Too Late for Newspapers to Turn the Tide?

by: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan August 05, 2008 | about stocks: LEE / MNI / NWS / NYT / WPO    
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

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For about a couple of years now, I’ve been telling newspaper executives - both privately in discussions and publicly on this blog - that they should rush to scoop up the most promising online video content startups (75%) and online video technology (25%) players that fit well with their strategies because it’s their only salvation.  I could hyperlink each and every one of those words in the previous sentence to something I’ve written.

The rationale was:

  • online video advertising will remain a joke for the next couple of years,
  • VCs will start to get impatient and move on to their next pipe dream,
  • asset prices will start to get less crazy (private asset valuations are more outrageous than public asset ones, let’s face it), and
  • you can build up your position to take advantage of online video before the online video revenues start to become material.

Did they listen?  Nope.

Did anything change in their prognosis?  Nope.  Why?  Because the fundamentals of their business only got worse, faster, and they did not really jump on the online video bandwagon.  Remember: to TV-centric media firms, online video is a threat.  To print-centric media firms, it’s not: it’s the silver lining, the salvation and a potential cure to their woes.

Turns out newspapers are dying faster, due to their inactivity.  Now, as layoffs pile on, it becomes harder to justify buying online video assets that don’t make much revenue and command lofty multiples… a few years ago, before the layoffs were being announced, it could have passed muster.   Now?  It’s harder, just ask Sam Zell.

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This article has 6 comments:

  •  
    Aug 05 03:48 PM
    About two years ago I was the webmaster for 8 (now 4) papers in Central California. I told the Publisher, that I was putting video online and gave him a target date. I was ignored. Then I did it on the target date. I was shooting local video and putting it online. A month later I was told to pull the video because we had no policy and ad people did not want the extra work of selling commercials. I now work for a Business publication in the Central valley in which 75% of the feature stories we do is with video.
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  •  
    Aug 05 05:53 PM
    As a former project director/consultant for a mega city media group, I often come across many small and large newspaper groups who provide web video links to their glocal audience. So, not ALL publishers ignore beneficial and justified advice/recommendations...
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  •  
    Aug 06 07:16 AM
    Video is definitely a path that newspapers should follow. It's news, it's easy to get if done correctly, and readers like it. Most newspapers that put video online find that these videos are popular.

    There are so many things newspapers can and should do with video, here are a few.

    1. Ask the newspaper's online community to submit their own videos of newsworthy events, then pay someone to edit and load the best videos online. Promote this heavily!

    2. Have an entire series of educational themes sponsored by advertisers, like travel, home improvement, etc. Keep a library of those videos that people can refer to when they want to watch it. Promote this video library to the market.

    3. Partner up with the number 2 tv station in each market and have their news videos run on newspaper websites. Win-win for all parties. Promote this partnership!

    There are at least 25 more things that newspapers can do to get video online, and many newspapers are now doing some of them. I don't think it's too late, but you need people with vision at the top to push the video button.

    Jay Fredrickson

    i-95south.com
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  •  
    Aug 13 04:47 PM
    On July 29th gannett announced it had mad a minority investment in Mogulus. A New York based Internet video platform. I know Gannett has been webcasting some video off it's newspaper websites. Indystar.com for example webcast Obama interview with Indianapolis Star Editorial board during the May primarys. It received high volume of hits. Is this the kind of video investment newspapers should make you speak of Ashkan?
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  •  
    Aug 15 09:38 AM
    I worked for a paper whose leadership 10 yrs ago said the internet was a fad. They then built a new printing facility with 3 times excess capacity because they didn't want to 'outgrow it too fast'. Since then they've had several layoffs and have been slow to embrace the internet.
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  •  
    Aug 26 12:25 AM
    For my part I entertain a high idea of the utility of periodical publications; insomuch as I could heartily desire, copies of ... magazines, as well as common Gazettes, might be spread through every city, town, and village in the United States. I consider such vehicles of knowledge more happily calculated than any other to preserve the liberty, stimulate the industry, and ameliorate the morals of a free and enlightened people.- George Washington, 1788.

    =================
    hesslei........

    Washington Drug Addiction
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